Author - Relationship Between Author and Editor

Relationship Between Author and Editor

The relationship between the author and the editor, often the author's only liaison to the publishing company, is often characterized as the site of tension. For the author to reach his or her audience, the work usually must attract the attention of the editor. The idea of the author as the sole meaning-maker of necessity changes to include the influences of the editor and the publisher in order to engage the audience in writing as a social act.

Pierre Bourdieu's essay "The Field of Cultural Production" depicts the publishing industry as a "space of literary or artistic position-takings," also called the "field of struggles," which is defined by the tension and movement inherent among the various positions in the field. Bourdieu claims that the "field of position-takings is not the product of coherence-seeking intention or objective consensus," meaning that an industry characterized by position-takings is not one of harmony and neutrality. In particular for the writer, their authorship in their work makes their work part of their identity, and there is much at stake personally over the negotiation of authority over that identity. However, it is the editor who has "the power to impose the dominant definition of the writer and therefore to delimit the population of those entitled to take part in the struggle to define the writer". As "cultural investors," publishers rely on the editor position to identify a good investment in "cultural capital" which may grow to yield economic capital across all positions.

According to the studies of James Curran, the system of shared values among editors in Britain has generated a pressure among authors to write to fit the editors' expectations, removing the focus from the reader-audience and putting a strain on the relationship between authors and editors and on writing as a social act. Even the book review by the editors has more significance than the readership's reception.

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Authoress - Relationship Between Author and Editor ... The relationship between the author and the editor, often the author's only liaison to the publishing company, is often characterized as the site of tension ... For the author to reach his or her audience, the work usually must attract the attention of the editor ... The idea of the author as the sole meaning-maker of necessity changes to include the influences of the editor and the publisher in order to engage the audience in writing as a social act ...

“There is a relationship between cartooning and people like Miró and Picasso which may not be understood by the cartoonist, but it definitely is related even in the early Disney.”—Roy Lichtenstein (b. 1923)

“Had I represented twenty thousand voters in Michigan, that political editor would not have known nor cared whether I was the oldest or the youngest daughter of Methuselah, or whether my bonnet came from the Ark or from Worths.”—Susan B. Anthony (18201906)

“When a mother quarrels with a daughter, she has a double dose of unhappinesshers from the conflict, and empathy with her daughters from the conflict with her. Throughout her life a mother retains this special need to maintain a good relationship with her daughter.”—Terri Apter (20th century)

“An able reader often discovers in other peoples writings perfections beyond those that the author put in or perceived, and lends them richer meanings and aspects.”—Michel de Montaigne (15331592)